Technical Questions/Capabilities

The program DIPS is necessary for creating .DWP files which can be imported by Unwedge. DIPS is available from Rocscience.

However, the DIPS File option in Unwedge is simply an alternative method of inputting the joint orientation data. If you do not have DIPS, then just use the Input Data option in Unwedge to enter the necessary joint orientation data.

The properties you use for Unwedge parameters depend on the type of bolts/cables you use. For DYWIDAG bars they give you a sheet with ultimate loads in kN. For the mechanically anchored type use this load for the capacities of the anchor/steel/plate and use an anchored bolt unless you have some reason to think that the plates or anchor will not give you the same capacity as the steel. If you're grouting then you need to find the bond strength, which is a function of the water-cement ratio or resin type.

There are no facilities in Unwedge to import an Excel spreadsheet of a specific format. What you can do is set up a spreadsheet with one column as the dip and one column as the dip direction of the joint planes. Then copy these two columns to the clipboard and paste them into the input data grid in Unwedge. For example, if column A is the dip of 6 joint planes and column B is the dip direction of the same 6 joint planes, select cells A1 to B6 and copy them to the clipboard. Then go into Unwedge. Open the Input Data dialog and select the Joint Orientations tab. Press the Add button 3 times to make room for 6 joints. Take your mouse cursor and move it to the 1 cell in the Joint Column. Click the mouse. The joint 1 dip cell should be highlighted with a black box. Now press CTRL-V to paste the clipboard contents into the grid. You can use the combination analyzer to look at the various combinations of the 6 joint planes.

If you have numerous joint measurements in a Dips file, you can create a Dips planes file containing the mean planes (average orientations) of the joint sets that you identify in Dips. You can then import this planes file into Unwedge using the Import button in the Joint Orientations Tab in the Input Data dialog.

In the current version of Unwedge, it is not possible to introduce a fourth plane (e.g. representing a ground surface, for example), in order to truncate a wedge. Wedges are always defined by 3 joint plane orientations. However, this functionality will likely be added in the next version of Unwedge.

You can scale the wedge size with the Scale Wedges option. This allows you to create smaller sized wedges, but preserves the general shape of the wedge.

To estimate the value of shotcrete shear strength, there are a variety of different codes that relate concrete compressive strength to shear strength. The Canadian CSA simplified standard is shear strength(MPa) = 0.2sqrt(fc), where fc is the 28 day compressive strength in MPa. For example, given 35MPa unreinforced shotcrete, the shear strength is approx 120 tonnes/m2. ACI and Eurocode are similar.

A good summary of codes and equations related to shear can be found at the following link: